PAR output Question: Current Orbit Marine Loop Lights

jwilkey2468 · Nov 12, 2023

I currently have a Current Orbit Marine Loop Light (36”-48”). I am curious to know under what conditions will the given PAR be achieved. As seen in the image attached, it mentions at a depth of 6” (6” from the light) the PAR will be 120, and so on. Is this when the White, Blue, Red and Green color is at 100%? Do all of the 4 colors that the light can pinpoint change the PAR linearly (if the blue set to 10% and the white is set to 10% will this equate to 20% of PAR at that depth)?

Spare time · Nov 12, 2023

I am pretty sure it assumed all channels at 100%

brclark82 · Nov 12, 2023

I currently have 2 of these mounted around 6” above my tank (or also knows as the pro version). At all channels 100% I get around 170 par at 6” deep 150 at 12” and 125 at 18”

With blue at 100% and white at 0% I get 60 par at 6”, 50 at 12” and 40 at 18”

It’s pretty linear as you turn the white up from 0-100 so you can extrapolate anything between those

My tank is only 14” wide so with 2 light bars there is essentially no variance front to back except right up against the glass

brclark82 · Nov 12, 2023

As you can see most of the par is from the white channels and the red/green channels had zero impact on par (which makes sense since there’s only a couple red/green leds on each bar).

I would turn blue to 100%, red and green to whatever looks best to you and then adjust white to give you the par needed

I run mine at 100/100 white/blue for 8 hours from 8a- 4p and I set the moonlight period to be 100% blue 10% white so I get the par the corals need during the day and the look I want during the evening

oreo54 · Nov 12, 2023

jwilkey2468 said:
I currently have a Current Orbit Marine Loop Light (36”-48”). I am curious to know under what conditions will the given PAR be achieved. As seen in the image attached, it mentions at a depth of 6” (6” from the light) the PAR will be 120, and so on. Is this when the White, Blue, Red and Green color is at 100%? Do all of the 4 colors that the light can pinpoint change the PAR linearly (if the blue set to 10% and the white is set to 10% will this equate to 20% of PAR at that depth)?

And.. "Normally" no you can't do a linear estimate since there are less diodes on each channel.
Not to mention there are no guarantees as to equal power output even if there were but lets analyse this a bit.
18 x .2 = 3.6 rgb
38 x .2 = 7.6 445nm
36 x.2 = 7.2 460nm
38 x .2 = 7.6 6500k
25 x .2 = 5 8000k
31 watts
listed at 35.. close.
Note .2W emitters are fairly standard though on thinking about it it probably wouldn't have mattered which
I used as long as they were the same.Too much thinking.. it hurts..

I'll add 1w to each of the single color diodes.. just because.
Well most single colors are a bit more efficient than rgb chips. And green is notoriously inefficient.
3.6
8.6
8.2
8.6
6

Now they complicated things with the blue in the rgb chips.
My assumption is they don't function with the 4 regular channels only the moonlight.
Even if they are added to the reg "blue" there output contribution is minimal, like 3.4% of overall.
like 1.2W
so now lets est. each contribution to say 100% par
24.6% 445nm
23.4% 460nm
24.6% 6500k
17.1% 8000k
10.3% rg(b)
=100%
now combine the channels into the "4" well will be 3 for the sake of simplifying it.
"Blue" is 48%
"white" is 43.7%
rg(b) 10.3% (divide by 3 for each ind. color)

This will match pretty well with the above data..

So yea like 100% blue- 0 white will probably be the same par as 50% blue- 50% white or 0 blue -100% white with a minor error between the 2.
How accurate is this..????
Looks ok.
Remember white leds are blue ones plus phosphors so generally they will have similar photon characteristics if
from the same err" series".
As you can tell it is really easier just getting real data.

Oh their spectrum chart is WAY off..y axis is incorrect on the blue side.

if the blue set to 10% and the white is set to 10% will this equate to 20% of PAR at that depth

To directly answer that now .. probably or close enough. Well at that low of output r,g may matter.
like 20% plus 6.9% for red/green at 100%

ThinBuLine · Nov 12, 2023

Interesting you get so low par. I recently got an acro frag and birds nest frag just to test the sps waters. In 2 months the acro has grown off the plug, and grown 6 new 3” sticks. The birds nest has gone ballistic with its growth. They are mounted high but still 8” from the light. Coloring on all my corals is great and I’m seeing great growth. Mind you I’ve never had radions to compare to but still have had great success with the 2 48” lights.